I think Jimmie was 10 years old, maybe 11, but my son was my frequent and constant fishing companion. One February morning, we bundled up, put our gear in the back of 72 Chevy Pick Up and headed for Swift Run in Greene County. At that time, most of the fishing at Swift Run was done down near Stanardsville, where they stocked brown trout twice each spring. I had discovered, however, that the upper stretches of Swift Run had a nice population of native brook trout. I fished there frequently and never saw another angler.
On this winter morning, a thick blanket of snow covered the hillsides, but we found a place to pull off the one-lane road and park. I sent Jimmie down to a big hole with his spinning rod and a can of worms, figuring he might have a chance to catch something, even if it was a sucker or chub. I fished with my fly rod upstream in a set of rapids and almost immediately got a strike on a black CK nymph. I could tell it was a good fish. As it came to net, I was stunned. This was as nice of a native brookie as I had ever caught, maybe 14-inces and a heavy, fat fish. I was going to release it, but I wanted Jimmie to see it first, so I put it carefully on a chain stringer I had and secured the stringer to a root and headed downstream to advise and show my son what I caught.
But as I was walking down the road, I saw Jimmie walking back up towards me. He had something draped across his arms. It was a brown trout. It was a huge brown trout. It measured 25 1/2 inches. I was stunned. He said it bit right away but didn’t fight much, since the water was freezing cold.
This was a fish of a lifetime, so I decided I would have it mounted for Jimmie. Sheepishly, I led my son back to the spot where my brookie was waiting to be released. It was a nice fish, but not nearly so nice as the big brown. We released the brook trout and put the brown on ice to mount. That trout hung on Jimmie’s wall for a number of years and is now in my grandson, James’ room.
Later, I returned to that same big pool and caught, on separate occasions, three more big brown trout from 18 to 20-inches, but none ever as big as the one Jimmie caught on that cold February morning nearly forty years ago.